[4] An early reference to the town dates to 1198, when Pope Innocent III penned a letter to a certain Nicodemus in order to confirm the existence of certain assets in the "territory of Casabona".

According to a memoir left by the archpriests and curates who administered Casabona's church from 1908 to 1913, it was believed Frederick II, Duke of Swabia had founded Zinga, originally called Cinga, with the parish being established in 1343.

It is more likely that Cinga's foundation dates to the War of the Sicilian Vespers, around the time the Almogavars laid siege to Umbriatico and the surrounding lands of Santa Marina, San Nicola dell'Alto and Maratea.

A second document, also from the beginning of the fourteenth century, reported in the manuscripts of Camillus de Lellis, concerns a dispute over the borders of Cerenzia, and names the lord of the "Motta di Cinga", Giovanni Rocca.

Cinga is not mentioned again until the mid-fifteenth century, during the time of Alfonso V of Aragon's descent into Calabria to tame the rebellion of the Marquis of Crotone, Antonio Centelles.

On 11 December 1444, while sieging the city of Crotone, the king granted immunity to Uriello Malatacca de Casabuono, baron of the castrum of Cinga, for 25 years due to the poverty of the land.

In 1506, Ferdinand II of Aragon granted rights to the city of Crotone, leading to the rise of three concurrent barons of Zinga, Giovanni Antonio Pipino, Nardo Lucifero, and Bartolomeo Tibaldo.

The town remained under the Rota family for most of the eighteenth century until they produced a baroness which married into the Savelli nobility, thus transferring the baronry to their name.